“You okay, mate?” the bartender asks.
Tucker opens his mouth, his jaw slack, throat constricted like a fish who doesn’t know what to do with actual air. “Beer,” he says. “Whatever’s on tap.” You okay? Fuck. What the hell kind of question is that anyway? The infectious disease specialist at St. Mary’s asked the same thing this morning, two or five times. She kept tapping his arm as he stared at the results of Rosie’s latest blood test. Yes, of course he understood the numbers. What he couldn’t fathom was why. The T-cell count was way down. Why isn’t the expensive cocktail of pills he flies here for every four months working? Christ, Rose has been in bed for a week. Why?
You okay?
Fuck, she’s an expert in pediatric AIDS, should have some answers. At least better questions. Her eyes filled with pity, handing him five bottles of enough pills for another two months, not four. “Let’s add something new to the mix, see if there’s any improvement,” she said, ushering him out the door.
No, he is definitely not okay.
When the cloudy mug lands in front of him, he’s sorry he didn’t order a bottle. He swirls the beer, figures the alcohol will kill any major bacteria. “Thanks. Tommy, right?”
The bartender glides a hand over his smooth dome as if sweeping his mind to place Tucker’s face. “You’re Henry’s friend.”
“Yeah, right.” Tucker cautiously sips his beer. Some friend. The last time he saw Henry was four years ago, June 1996, when the promising HIV protocol first became available in London. It was awkward at best, sitting across from him in this pub downstairs from the dingy flat he leased month to month. Henry kept looking out the window, as if waiting for someone he saw approaching from down the street. It was unsettling for both of them to be reminded of the bond they shared. “I tried his apartment. Nobody answered.”
Tommy grunts. “Still owes me a month’s rent. Haven’t seen him in, what, must be a bit over two years now.”
“Any idea where he went?”
“He was always going on about taking photos again, finding something to inspire him. I figured it was just talk.”
“Thanks.” Tucker takes a long swig of beer. Two years. Shit. Henry could be anywhere. His thumb twists the brass band that has left a slight green tinge on his little finger over the past six and a half years. Solange my love, I’m afraid this time I royally screwed up. Rachel hasn’t even been in Rwanda two weeks and she’s already talking about giving up, going home early. Who could blame her? Lillian’s still not talking, not about Henry at least. And now, he’s disappeared completely. Everything’s falling apart.
The brass band isn’t worth much. Solange didn’t want him to spend a lot of money on a gold wedding ring. They were saving up for a little beach house in Zanzibar. They had never been, but the way Solange said it was mouthwatering, like a rich chocolate treat. It sounded like someplace extraordinary. A place where they could escape from Kigali for long weekends and recharge to the sound of the ocean and kids building sandcastles. Rose would have lots of friends to play with, and he’d teach Solange to bodysurf.
Tucker raises the mug to his lips again but doesn’t drink. Happy anniversary, my love. Six years ago today, they were to be married. A December wedding, just after the rainy season ended and the entire country would be clean, lush and green. The air at this time of year is practically bubbly with oxygen, intoxicating. The animals are fat and healthy. Everything is so fucking alive. Every December, he fights the urge to clean out his savings account and go to Zanzibar, just disappear into the ocean. He might already have taken that one-way walk if it wasn’t for the promise he made to Solange.
Lying on a narrow hospital bed together, Tucker sleeping with a foot on the floor to give Solange more room, they vowed to build a family with the baby they saved together. He thought bringing Henry back, fixing things between him and his daughter, him and Lillian… Somehow, Rose might magically… He weaves his fingers into a vice, elbows on the bar, and presses his thumbs against the waves of tension rolling in behind his temples. They would all be Rose’s family. They would be her strength.
Tucker closes his eyes, giving in to the crashing waves. When he finally talked to his dad about his wavering faith in becoming a physician, Daniel Senior’s advice was to choose a specialty that would give him direction. Define him. The problem was, unlike his namesake, he wanted to be more than a surgeon sewing up flesh and mending bones. Solange was the one who taught him to be a healer. She sat with patients and talked to them, held their hands until they fell asleep if they were scared. She held him when he was scared. He became, not just a better doctor, but also a better man during those first three years in Rwanda. A loving partner to Solange, a father to Rose, a son to Lillian. Family became more than just a responsibility to fulfill, and love—not work, as with his father—is still the primary commitment that defines him.
His eyes ache when he exhales, burning with a dry sorrow. Maybe he was wrong to trick Rachel into coming to Rwanda; okay, for sure he was wrong. Henry is probably off in Morocco or Spain, hasn’t even seen the letters he mailed. He rubs his temples, as if to release something liquid and soothing, but instead his fingers are like ice picks to his brain, chipping away at the promise he and Solange made.
“Another beer, Tommy.” He slides his empty glass across the bar. Keeping that promise, fixing the family he found for Rose, is what he has hung onto during the past few months while her health has been deteriorating. This is what has defined him. Christ, it beats the hell out of the way Rachel beats herself up about losing her daughter and quite possibly her husband. And Lillian…sure, she still takes care of the children, but he sees how her heart has become scarred and tender. What if, just like Rachel’s mom, Lillian’s scars become irreparably tough, her heart permanently closed? He pays for the beer and then leaves the full mug to catch a cab for the airport. Maybe he can catch an earlier flight back home. There’s not much hope that Henry will show up at Kwizera, he knows this. But it’s all he has right now.
TUCKER CAN PRACTICALLY HEAR THE forest yawning awake as he dumps his backpack near his tent, shedding the weight of his trip. He heads into the forest, down a path winding away from Kwizera, away from the blue-black sky that outlines the Virungas like some medieval castle hovering over the place. Hazy beams from his flashlight bounce off the branches, catching a surprised possum or silvery eucalyptus leaves still quaking from the weight of a more agile animal that might well be tailing him. Lillian dubbed this place the Forest of Ghosts after the genocide. She doesn’t allow the children to come here, not even with an adult, as if the graves he and Henry dug might open up and swallow them. Tucker finds it peaceful here. He turns off the flashlight. Rays of light strain through the canopy, but he could find his way to the clearing he and Henry made about a half-mile in with his eyes shut.
During the first two weeks after the Hutu president’s plane was shot down and retribution was declared against the Tutsis, he and Henry found two or three bodies each morning in the fields that now grow corn and teff. Mostly children whose parents thought they would be safe at Kwizera. The local Hutus waited for them each night. It was Henry’s idea to take the bodies into the woods so Lillian wouldn’t find them. They dug a separate grave for each child, marked with a chunky headstone of mahogany and an identifying characteristic written with a thin paintbrush dipped in black dye made from a kind of boiled fungus.
Red shirt. Kitten barrettes. Green eyes.
There was no identifying most of the faces: some of the heads were severed completely. After the Interahamwe militia from Kigali rolled into town in a cavalcade of trucks, there was a period of several weeks when there were too many dead bodies to hide them all from Lillian or bury them properly. They dug a mass grave in a section of land that intersected Kwizera and two neighboring farms, one owned by a Hutu, where sunflowers now catch the light, growing tall and strong. The Interahamwe soldiers watched from a distance but never intervened. Lillian said it was because they still had a little pi
ece of their conscience working. It gave her faith, like God might not have completely turned a blind eye on Rwanda.
Tucker knew what kept him and everyone at Kwizera safe: he sometimes tended to the wounded soldiers. It was his job to save them, part of the oath he took in medical school. While he set an arm or tended to a knife wound, these men reverted back into teachers and auto mechanics, boys he had seen playing tag in the market square. He had to switch off the part of his brain that held fresh images of hacked up bodies, sometimes picked over by jackals, hyenas, or hungry house pets whose owners had disappeared. And then, there was the irony that here he was stitching up some of the same soldiers who might have attacked the hospital where he had worked in Kigali. Killed Solange. What kind of fucked-up karma was that?
A silver-threaded fog illuminates the clearing. Tucker walks through the maze of headstones, stopping at each one to remove bits of dried leaves or animal droppings. He uprights a marker tipped over on its side. There are twenty-nine graves in all, including four children of Kwizera who died, but not at the hands of Hutus. Measles, tuberculosis, polio. He brings vaccinations from Kigali; there are antibiotics he scored in London, donations from three different hospitals, in his duffle bag now. But it’s never enough.
In the center of the clearing is a massive stump that serves as the base of an ancestral altar he helped Nadine to construct to honor her family. On top is a cross they nailed together, wood recovered from the Neguro home in the foothills on the other side of Mubaro, draped with beaded necklaces and a purple scarf that belonged to Dahla. He stoops and takes quick inventory of the scooped-out stump, sealed with a brick to keep out rodents and curious monkeys: shards of china plates and crystal wine glasses that the Neguros only used for special occasions; a jar with the charred ashes of the house that Enoch’s five brothers and father from Swaziland had helped him to build; a plastic bag with a miraculously preserved paperback book cover, A Wrinkle in Time. He counts the purple flowers around the stump: forty wild pansies that Nadine planted for her mother’s fortieth birthday just before she left for school last fall. Everything’s in order.
He starts to leave but instead heads to the river, not far away, and wistfully stares into the murky water. How long will it take for the river to run clear again, as it had before the genocide? He kneels, pebbles digging into his knees, rubs his hands together like sticks that might spark. Nadine sometimes comes to the altar to talk to her parents and cousin Sylvia. Once, not long after the massacre, he heard her ask for their forgiveness. Tucker interlocks his fingers to contain the heat in his palms. “Forgive me,” he whispers. The words form an image of Solange, along with a sadness so hollow and brittle he is afraid it may break him. If he can’t keep his promise, if he loses Solange and Rose both, then who will he be?
The sun is just cresting over the mountains by the time Tucker walks out of the forest. His neck and shoulders are stiff, his eyesight blurry from jet lag and just enough sleep to make him truly exhausted. “Home sweet…” he mumbles, pulling back the mosquito netting he’s rigged up as a canopy over his tent and a platform. He stops short. Rachel is sacked out on one of two low-slung beach chairs on the platform, folded into herself, knees curled to her chest. How did she manage to fall asleep sitting up?
She blinks awake, and then stands squarely in front of him. “Where were you?”
“Good morning to you, too.”
“The last three days. Where were you? And what do you know about my father going to the church? Was he trying to find Nadine?”
Tucker opens his mouth. Give it a rest. Not everything’s about you. It’s the dark circles under her eyes that get to him. “Yeah, he went there to find her.”
“To save her.”
Tucker nods; sure, it could be true. He never asked Henry why he went there with his camera. “And then, I found them both in town.”
“Where? How did they escape?”
“Whoa, just…whoa.” Tucker collapses into a chair. “Give me a minute. It was a rough trip. London. I went to see an immunology specialist about Rose.”
“How is she?”
“Her white cells still aren’t doing their job of fighting off infections, even with the expensive new protocol I have to fly to London to get my hands on.” Tucker sighs. “I’m going to have to take Rosie to Kigali for another transfusion and some tests.”
Rachel leans in and places her hand lightly on his, setting off a series of not unpleasant but surprising tiny sparks, like static electricity on a blanket fresh from the dryer. Tucker reflexively slides his hand away, examines his fingernails. “So, your dad. I did some poking around in London. Went to the last address I had for him. No luck.”
“What was it like?” Rachel asks.
“Small—but, y’know, nice.” Tucker frowns as he tugs at a strand of cuticle unraveling from his thumbnail. Christ, what else can he say? Rachel leans forward, waiting, her eyes a paler shade of brown than usual. Watery.
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Tucker blurts. “He could be in Europe, on assignment. He could be back in the States, he could be—”
“Tucker.” Rachel raises a hand to stop him. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. I wish I could tell you I found him, but don’t give up. I’ll keep looking—”
“No, it’s okay.” Her hand falls on his open palm. “I’m sorry about Rose. Don’t you give up either.”
Tucker closes his eyes, his fingers curling tightly around hers, his spine adhering to the c-shape of the canvas. Yeah, he can totally see how she fell asleep sitting up. Her hand goes limp in his and he moves closer so that her head falls gently against his shoulder. That blanket, now soft and warm with sunlight filtering through the trees above, falls over both of them. He fills his lungs with dew-soaked air, nourishing the place where he is grateful to be alive. He grants himself the small permission, just for a brief moment, to put aside all that has passed and what is yet to come. To rest.
TWENTY-THREE
THIS IS LILLIAN’S FAVORITE TIME OF DAY, the early morning before breakfast when the sun’s bright but not yet high enough to heat up the air, perfect for teaching the two older boys about how to take care of the farm. Thomas and Robert, who are both about fifteen although neither child knows his exact age, link hands as they run ahead of her to the banana field. Their sheer joy makes her smile. They could be on a treasure hunt, eagerly searching for fruit ripe for the picking. She watches with a bit of envy, walking slowly to favor the leg that gets cranky sometimes if she sleeps on it funny. “Be mindful to stay close enough for me to see you,” she calls out. Robert waves but doesn’t slow down a bit, as expected. That’s fine. She trusts Thomas, who is used to looking after his little brother, Zeke, and Rose.
She stops to roughly rub out an annoying ache that starts in her thigh and shoots up into her lower back. It’s hard to believe Thomas will be graduating from high school in another few years and there will only be three children left at Kwizera. Seems like yesterday that she and Henry were downright lonely with less than a dozen youngsters around the kitchen table. They were going to create the next generation: a strong and fair group of men and women, Tutsis and Hutus, brothers and sisters. Henry always said this was her gig, he was just happy to be part of the adventure when he wasn’t off in the mountains, shadowing gorillas—his other family. But they were a team; she was the engine and he was the fuel. Life moves slower without him here.
“Miss Lillian, come see,” Robert shouts from the nearest row of banana plants, which cover a fenced-in square hectare along sweet potatoes, beans and sorghum. The six-foot-high metal mesh topped with barbed wire is an eyesore, but it keeps out the vervets and larger rodents.
“Color’s the easiest way to judge,” she says, reaching up to point out a bunch of unripe bananas. “See how dark these are? Light green is what you’re looking for, with a hint of yellow. You want to make sure they’ve stopped growing, but if you wait until they turn totally yellow the baboons may beat you to it. Those crafty
devils are smart. Sometimes they dig right underneath the fence or gnaw open a hole with their teeth.”
Both of the boys stare at the fruit, no doubt making mental notes, clicking tongues against the roofs of their mouths in agreement. Thomas and Robert are both interested in farming. They assure her, as boys getting a glimpse of what it means to be men will do, that they’ll stay here forever and take care of Kwizera. Take care of her. A kind and generous notion and she doesn’t doubt their sincerity. But she won’t hold them to it.
She lets the boys rummage through the broad leaves and search for more ripe fruit they can wrangle down and add to their basket. Meanwhile, she surveys the rows of vegetables that she shares with nine women from town. They’d call it a co-op back in the States, but here it’s simply being neighborly. She stoops to inspect the red clay soil. Thankfully, the sweet potato vines are poking through the crusty ground even though the heavens have been stingy with rain for the past few weeks. The aunties, as the children call the genocide widows who sometimes come to help out with the young ones, depend on the rotating crops for their livelihood.
Lillian places one palm on the ground, another on her heart as she says a prayer. Thank God for this group of sisters who help plant and harvest, and sometimes sell crops and handiwork at the markets in Mubaro and surrounding towns. She doesn’t have the time or energy to manage all this land by herself. She’s not comfortable hiring folks to work for her, giving orders. That was Henry’s department. He had an easy way about him, could get a job done without being too bossy. It was different back when Dahla and Enoch lived here and helped out. They were part of Kwizera. Family.
The widows have become family too, taking Lillian into their quilting group, coming over for holidays and the occasional potluck Sunday dinner. After Henry left, for months one or another of the women brought over freshly baked bread or whatever was poking up in their garden. It was as if they knew he wasn’t coming back, long before that idea moved from a paltry agitation in Lillian’s stomach, to a throbbing discomfort in her chest, and then settled heavily in her head.
In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills Page 18